


A Story Best Learned Alone

by vudonn



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Immortality, M/M, Time Travel, the time traveller and immortal au no one asked for, wannabe deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vudonn/pseuds/vudonn
Summary: Phil wanders through time with only one constant, a man never touched by its harsh hands.





	A Story Best Learned Alone

**Author's Note:**

> theres a lot abt this im unhappy with but ive given up trying to fix it ://

He’s always here.

The door creaks when Phil pushes it open, old as it is. The doors don’t have locks, so he always lets himself in. The sun’s rising outside, and with its light, Phil can see the man fast asleep in bed.

A gentle shake at his shoulder is all it takes to wake him.

“Phil, you’ve returned,” P.T. says with a sleepy smile Phil’s all too happy to return.

“As if I could stay away.”

-

Phil doesn’t remember the time he was originally from. Everything becomes blurry when he tries to think back too far. Nothing is constant, not his memories, not the time, not the humans around him.

Except for P.T. of course.

He’d tried to keep journals on his adventures once upon a time, but there just became too much to write. He wanted to write down how the tree to the East had grown two more branches since his last visit or how the bush that once contained his favorite fruit had moved two feet down, but he just couldn’t keep track of everything. He gave his old journals to P.T. who said he enjoyed reading it when he was bored.

It used to be so lonely, traveling through the fabrics of time and space alone. Now, there was a place he could return to.

-

P.T.’s home takes on many different styles throughout the ages, but it never moves. It stays on this plot of land surrounded by miles of grass.

It’s far from any people, although Phil doesn’t know if there are people in the world at the moment. He stops staring out the window in favor of the inside of the house.

There’s a calendar on the wall of his house that Phil had gotten him as a gift. It dates the year 1998. He’d gotten it a while ago.

“What year is it?” Phil asks him and gets a shrug in return.

“Before 1988.”

“You seem tired today,” Phil says.

“It’s been a long decade.”

Phil hums in agreement.

-

Phil never stayed in one time long. When he did, everything seemed slow. The saplings that were planted around P.T.’s house never grew any taller.

“I think I’ll come back and visit when they’re grown,” he voices.

“You’re too impatient,” P.T. laughs. “It’s nice, caring for them and watching them flourish slowly.”

Phil sits there under the sun for a while longer, watching the plants. They don’t move, save for the occasional shake from the breeze. “I don’t understand.”

“Maybe you will one day.”

“Okay.”

-

It’s bizarre seeing how different things are whenever he moves elsewhere. Small village homes are suddenly skyscrapers. It’s terrifying, and he retreats to P.T. often for comfort.

“It all happens too fast. Everything changes in a blink,” he says. “I’m afraid.”

P.T. only sighs, “If only that were true.

Phil has to take a moment to stop because he’d forgotten–forgotten that P.T. went through time as it changed, watched the hands of the clocks as they crawled slowly across the face.

And he feels immature, feels ignorant and small because he knows so little compared to P.T. He was merely someone who travelled through thousands of lifetimes and lived none of them next to the one who’s seen it all.

“I’m sor–“

“I don’t mind.” P.T.’s smile is warm and safe, so Phil believes him.

-

He goes back, to before the calendar was on P.T.’s wall and before there are small trees lining his house. The house is hardly that, walls made of logs of wood and roof made of long grass. He doubts the year is on any calendar.

“You’ve come again. I didn’t think you would,” P.T. says when he sees him.

“Have you seen me often?”

“It’s complicated,” P.T. says. “You may not be who I once knew.”

Phil’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who could I be but me?”

“Time is a funny thing, as is reality. There are so many of you and so many of I, floating through its infinite expanses. I may not be the same P.T. you’ve seen before or will ever see again. You may not be and probably are not my Phil, nor I your P.T. Still, know that I don’t love you any less than he who is mine.”

Phil nods and pretends to get it.

-

This P.T. looks tired, and he leans on Phil when he arrives.

“Are you alright?”

“You, you, Phil. I don’t regret you, my most perfect creation,” P.T. mutters, hands wrapping around Phil in an embrace.

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re the best one. I’m glad you were able to exist.”

The rambling doesn’t make sense to him, but Phil puts his hands around the other man’s anyway. It’s a nice moment.

-

One day, he asks P.T. if there was ever a human he loved. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to find someone too, considering his circumstances.

“There was a woman, long ago. I liked her smile. She picked fruits from the trees nearby,” P.T. says.

“Did you love her?”

“She stayed a while, so I suppose, for a while, yes.”

“Do you love me?”

P.T. considered the question with a thoughtful look on his face. “I’m uncertain. I hope that in time, I will.”

-

Phil pushes open the door and greets P.T., who’s sitting on the floor with a book. There are dozens surrounding him, from many different times, some collected by himself and some Phil brought him.

“Good book?” he asks.

P.T. looks at him with a frown. He says, “Who are you?”

Phil’s stomach drops, and he’s frozen. Slowly, he says, “I’m Phil. Who else could I be?”

P.T. is still frowning, and Phil’s more scared now.  
He’s never considered the possibility of being forgotten.

“I’ve visited you countless times, I’m a–“

“I’m simply teasing you, my dear. How could I forget you?” His frown has melted into a warm grin as he puts down the book.

“Of course,” Phil says, but he still can’t shake the cold feeling of being lost through time again.

- 

“There is a lot I keep from you, y’know,” P.T. tells him while he pretends to be asleep in the field under the stars. He’d been close to really being asleep before a bug had crawled on his nose. He’s drifting off again, though, and Phil’s conscience sways in and out as he tries to listen. “I’m not sure if I do it to protect you or to protect me, but there are some things I so desperately need to tell you.”

He sighs, and Phil wants to comfort him.

“You always look to me for answers, but I feel there’s so little I know. I want to give you the meaning of the universe, but I can’t. And yet, I still keep silly things like your own birthday or your mother’s favorite color locked from you.” He’s muttering now, and Phil has to strain to hear it. “Maybe it’s because I’m afraid you’ll return to them, the things that are more familiar than I, once you knew. But, that’s selfish, isn’t it?”

P.T. chuckles and Phil feels the warmth of lips on his forehead before he really falls asleep.

-

The door is locked when he arrives, and Phil knocks quietly. When P.T. opens the door, he grins at his visitor. It feels off, but Phil smiles back regardless.

“You’ve come back to me again, so good you are at doing that. I’ve long awaited this day, ” he says in greeting, and Phil steps into the house hesitantly. It’s dark outside.

“Has it been a while?”

“Quite, but it matters little when you’re here now.”  
Cold hands found their way onto Phil’s cheeks as P.T. cupped his face and pulled him closer. Their foreheads rested against each other. Phil tries not to shake.

“How long?”

“Two centuries. Rarely do you come this far into the future,” P.T. tells him. “But, oh, my dear Phil, how I missed you.”

“Maybe I’m not your Phil,” he says.

“Of course you are. You are my Phil just as I am your Phineas, two halves finding each other no matter when or where we are. What else would we be?”

Phil steps back, but the door is closed behind him. “You said otherwise before.”

“Time changes us, doesn’t it?” P.T. says, and Phil reaches for the doorknob.

“No, only you,” he wants to say, but instead, he opens the door.

“Please, don’t leave so soon. I’ve been waiting for you for too long to see you go,” P.T. says, and his voice causes Phil to stop. That and the hand around his wrist. “I’ve missed you dearly.”

P.T.’s words are breathed on his neck, and he shivers.

“Stay with me, please. Just a while longer.”

And because P.T. has never asked him to stay before, Phil ran away as fast as he could.

-

Phil doesn’t go that far anymore. He stays in the middle times when P.T. is happier.

He stays in the better times, and he’s a coward because he can’t face it, can’t see the state P.T. was in.

-

They’re sitting outside the house in the shade of the trees when Phil asks, “Do you think I take you for granted?”

P.T. doesn’t say anything, but there’s a small smile on his face. He looks amused.

“It’s a serious question. Wherever I go, you’re always here, but I’m not always with you. Don’t you get lonely?”

“Hardly,” P.T. says. “This world is full of people. I’m never alone.”

And Phil, who’s traveled all through time and has been in the company of millions of people, has never felt that way with them. “I feel alone with anyone but you.”

Phil’s staring at him, so P.T. leans closer to touch their foreheads together. It feels too familiar.

- 

“There’s something I want to know,” Phil says, and P.T. nods. “Why are you always here?”

“It’s a punishment,” P.T. answers simply.

“A punishment?”

“I created something, made a mistake, and am deserving of the punishment I’ve received.”

“Will you ever leave?”

P.T. takes a long time sip of his tea and stares at the tattered calendar on his wall. Phil waits. “I never want to leave you.”

It delights Phil enough to forget his question.

-

When he goes back, back into the future he’s afraid of, the world is silent. He disturbs the peace as he walks towards P.T.’s house, traversing through the ruins of what once was humanity.

Everyone is gone, yet Phil wants to believe P.T.’s fate was different. It’s different because he’s immune to the cruel hands of death that all man has suffered. While everyone had passed, he remained, and he will remain. Phil convinces himself he would reunite with his friend soon.

The house is empty when he arrives, slightly worn down and covered in a layer of dust. The bookshelves are bare, as are the walls, and all that remains that suggested it was P.T. who lived here is a journal on his desk that Phil recognizes as one of his own old ones. He skips through his old writing and to the last page.

_And with the foul mistakes of my past, I leave the Earth. I’m glad, at least, they were able to make a life from the world I subjugated them to._

_My thoughts are of him even now, but then, when are they not? Perhaps this world has made me selfish for I want nothing more than to have him with me when I go, even if it means abandoning him in this world where no other beings roam. Oh, how lonely that life would be._

_My final wish is he never come here. I never want him to be alone again._

He leaves the journal with the house where it belongs.

-

The saplings have grown into big trees that surround P.T.’s house. Phil never watched them grow.

“You created man. And the gods punished you by forcing you among them,” Phil confronts, and for once, he feels that he understands P.T.

“It’s not that simple,” P.T. responds with a sad frown. “There are no gods to punish me.”

Phil stares at P.T., who doesn’t meet his gaze once, until he understands.

-

Phil goes back, back to the time when men first came. He walks through the fields, and he hears the wails of the first humans. Though he can’t understand their language, he knows what they’re pleading for. They beg for release from this torment, from the life they never asked to take part in because the world has been cruel to them. They want someone to blame.

There’s a house on the hill, and he knows none of the humans could have created it. When he pushes open the door, he sees the house is empty. Its shelves were sans the books he was used to seeing, and the walls lacked the artifacts Phil had brought over time. It feels strange and quiet. He sits down on the floor, and he decides he’ll stay a while, however long it takes.

Outside, it starts raining, and the tears of someone familiar fall onto the roof.


End file.
